Arts & Culture
All you can heat
In a foundry on West Broad Street, sculpture students create art from flame
VCU School of the Arts students Henna Asthana and Hank Foreman (above, in protective suits) pour silicon bronze heated to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit into resin-bonded sand molds as part of instructor Jesse Burrowes’ foundry class. Here, Asthana, Foreman and their classmates share their creations and offer a glimpse of what it takes to make art from fire.
Burrowes, an adjunct instructor in the Department of Sculpture + Extended Media in the School of the Arts, checks the temperature of the molten bronze. The foundry is located in the Murry N. DePillars Building on West Broad Street.
Burrowes prepares the crucible for pouring.
Lucy Tansey and Jules Frank pour molten bronze into a ladle (held by Asthana and Foreman).
Asthana and Foreman pour the bronze into resin-bonded sand molds to make relief sculpture castings.
Once the sand molds are full, Tansey and Frank pour leftover bronze into ingots so that it can be reused in the next pour.
Liana Tai begins dismantling a sand mold to inspect the bronze sculpture inside.
Burrowes talks with students, standing over the now-open sand molds.
Tai and Foreman cool down the bronze sculptures using a hose and cold water.
(Left to right) Liana Tai, Curly Carr, Hank Foreman and Henna Asthana present their bronze creations after cooling.
All photos by Jud Froelich
